Fish

Channa striata

Channa striata, the striped snakehead or snakehead murrel (haruan), is an air-breathing freshwater predator fish of Channidae native from Pakistan to southeast Asia, cultured widely, IUCN Least Concern, a species complex.

Channel catfish

Channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), North American ictalurid catfish with spotted body, rounded 24–29-ray anal fin, forked tail; native Canada to Mexico, dominant US farm-raised catfish, hybridized with blue catfish in aquaculture.

Channichthyidae

Channichthyidae, crocodile icefishes or white-blooded fishes, are Southern Ocean notothenioid fish and the only vertebrates lacking hemoglobin; 16–25 species, origin within 5 million years, some also lacking cardiac myoglobin.

Characidae

Characidae, the tetras, are Neotropical freshwater fishes of Characiformes; formerly over 1250 species in 141 genera, split in 2024 into Spintherobolidae, Stevardiidae, Characidae, and Acestrorhamphidae based on UCE phylogenomics.

Characiformes

Characiformes is an order of primarily freshwater ray-finned fishes that includes piranhas, tetras, and hatchetfishes, with over 1,600 species in 18 families living mainly in African and Neotropical rivers.

Cheirolepis

Cheirolepis is an extinct Devonian ray-finned fish genus (Agassiz 1835; type species C. trailli) from Scotland, Canada, and Nevada, the sister taxon of all other actinopterygians, distinct from the plant Euphorbia cheirolepis and the fossil pollen genus.

Chelon auratus

Chelon auratus, the golden grey mullet (formerly Liza aurata), is a Mugilidae fish of the eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea, identified by a golden gill-cover spot, commercially fished, and IUCN Near Threatened since 2022.

Chelon labrosus

Chelon labrosus, the thicklip grey mullet (Mugil labrosus, Mugil chelo), is an eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean mullet identified by a thick papillose upper lip; grows to 75 cm, IUCN Near Threatened since 2022.

Chimaera

Chimaeras (ghost sharks, ratfish) are deep-water cartilaginous fishes of subclass Holocephali, order Chimaeriformes, with one gill opening per side, crushing tooth plates, and a fossil record back about 400 million years; not sharks despite the ghost shark name.

Chimaera monstrosa

Chimaera monstrosa, the rabbitfish or rat fish, a deep-water chimaera of the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean upper continental slope (200–700 m), IUCN Vulnerable A2bd due to trawl bycatch.

Chinese paddlefish (白鲟)

Chinese paddlefish (白鲟, Psephurus gladius), also called Chinese swordfish, was a Yangtze-endemic paddlefish up to 7 m long, declared extinct by IUCN in 2022 after functional extinction by 1993 from overfishing and damming.

Chinook salmon

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), king salmon, the largest Pacific salmon, anadromous from California to Alaska's Chukchi Sea; prized food fish, key prey of Southern Resident killer whales, with ESA-listed populations and Yukon River fishing bans.

Chondrichthyes

Chondrichthyes, the cartilaginous fishes, includes sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras (Elasmobranchii and Holocephali). Cartilage skeletons, Ordovician-scale fossil record, 1,188+ species, over one-third threatened by overfishing.

Chondrostoma nasus

Chondrostoma nasus, the common nase (Nase, paduc, podust), is a European cyprinid river fish grazing benthic algae; Near Threatened (IUCN 2023), gravel-spawning and migratory, introduced in France and Italy.

Chromileptes altivelis

Chromileptes altivelis, the humpback or panther grouper (Cromileptes altivelis), a spotted monotypic Indo-West Pacific reef fish, protogynous, slow-growing, valuable in live fish and aquarium trades.

Chromis chromis

Chromis chromis, the Mediterranean damselfish (Sparus chromis, Linnaeus 1758), a small shoaling planktivorous Pomacentridae of Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic rocky littorals, a key nutrient-linking prey species.

Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus

Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus, the silver catfish, is a claroteid catfish from Senegal to Angola, omnivorous, up to 65 cm, IUCN Least Concern, and cultured in West African brackishwater ponds.

Chrysophrys auratus

Chrysophrys auratus (snapper, silver seabream; synonym Pagrus auratus) is an Indo-Pacific sparid fish of Australia and New Zealand, long-lived to 54 years, heavily fished, with several depleted stocks.

Chum salmon

Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), also called keta or dog salmon, is the most widely distributed Pacific salmon, second largest after Chinook, spawning once at ages 3-6; 2024 U.S. landings were 104 million pounds, 99% from Alaska.

Cichlid

Cichlids (Cichlidae), also called cichlid fishes, are a species-rich freshwater fish family of about 1,800 species across Africa and the Neotropics, famed for East African Great Lakes adaptive radiations, pharyngeal jaws, and mouthbrooding.

Cichliformes

Cichliformes, cichlids and convict blennies, is an order of ovalentarian ray-finned fishes with two families, Cichlidae and Pholidichthyidae, Eocene fossils, and up to 2,100 endemic species in East African lakes.

Clarias anguillaris

Clarias anguillaris (mudfish), an African airbreathing catfish (Clariidae) described by Linnaeus in 1758 and type species of Clarias; freshwater fish of the Nile, Chad, Niger, Senegal, and Volta systems, used in fisheries and aquaculture, IUCN Least Concern.

Clarias gariepinus

Clarias gariepinus, the North African or sharptooth catfish (African magur), an air-breathing clariid catfish native to almost all of Africa and Asia Minor, a leading tropical aquaculture species, widely introduced and invasive, IUCN Least Concern.

Clariidae

Clariidae (airbreathing or walking catfishes) is a Siluriformes family of 16 genera and 118 species across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, defined by a suprabranchial organ for atmospheric respiration and convergent eel-like body forms.

Clupea harengus

Clupea harengus, the Atlantic herring, is a small schooling pelagic Clupeidae fish of both North Atlantic coasts, from Labrador to Cape Hatteras and Norway to Bay of Biscay; a major forage and bait species, currently overfished in US waters but not subject to overfishing.

Clupeidae

Clupeidae (herrings, shads, sardines, menhadens) is a family of Clupeiformes, small schooling plankton-feeding fishes 2-75 cm, mostly tropical marine, commercially among the most important fish families; molecular phylogenies show the traditional family is not monophyletic.